This Saturday the 28,000 members of this Steam group are planning to play Half-Life 2 together.

The group hopes that the massive play session will shoot Half-Life 2 up the Steam most-played list and let Valve know how many people are still waiting for Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Valve certainly know this already, and probably receive dozens of emails but the group hopes to deliver the message in a more appreciative way.

“Instead of focusing efforts in a negative and disrespectful way, we have decided to gain Valve’s attention by delivering a basic message: Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication,” they say on the Steam group page.

Event is set to kick off at 7PM GMT / 11AM PST this Saturday.

(Prices may change during the day)

Space Pirates and Zombies

http://store.steampowered.com/app/107200/

US: $ 2.49

UK: £ 1.74 (9% higher)

EU: € 2.24 (17% higher)

Homefront

http://store.steampowered.com/app/55100/

US: $ 7.49

UK: £ 7.49 (56% higher)

EU: € 4.99 (13% lower)

Machinarium

http://store.steampowered.com/app/40700/

US: $ 2.49

UK: £ 1.86 (17% higher)

EU: € 2.11 (10% higher)

Revenge of the Titans

http://store.steampowered.com/app/93200/

US: $ 2.49

UK: £ 1.74 (9% higher)

EU: € 2.49 (30% higher)

Dungeon Defenders

http://store.steampowered.com/app/65800/

US: $ 3.74

UK: £ 2.49 (4% higher)

EU: € 2.99 (4% higher)

Section 8®: Prejudice™

http://store.steampowered.com/app/97100/

US: $ 3.74

UK: £ 2.49 (4% higher)

EU: € 3.24 (13.37% higher, true story.)

Dead Space

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/DeadSpace

US: $ 4.99

UK: £ 3.74 (17% higher)

EU: € 3.74 (2% lower)

Dead Space™ 2

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/DeadSpace

US: $ 4.99

UK: £ 4.99 (56% higher!)

EU: € 7.49 (96% higher!!!)

Hearts of Iron III

http://store.steampowered.com/app/25890/

US: $ 2.49

UK: £ 1.99 (25% higher)

EU: € 2.49 (30% higher)

Hearts of Iron 3 Collection

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/HeartsOfIron

US: $7.49

UK: £6.24

EU: €7.49

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

http://store.steampowered.com/app/35130/

US: $ 3.74

UK: £ 2.49 (4% higher)

EU: € 3.74 (30% higher)

Tomb Raider: Legend

http://store.steampowered.com/app/7000/

US: $ 3.74

UK: £ 1.99 (16% higher)

EU: € 2.49 (12% higher)

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8000/

US: $ 2.49

UK: £ 2.49 (56% higher)

EU: € 2.49 (30% higher)

Tomb Raider: Underworld

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8140/

US: $ 4.99

UK: £ 2.49 (21% lower)

EU: € 3.74 (2% lower)

Assassin’s Creed Pack

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/Holiday2011_AssassinsCreed

US: $59.99

UK: £34.99

EU: €59,99 (30% higher)

Assassin’s Creed Revelations

http://store.steampowered.com/app/201870/

US: $ 37.49

UK: £ 22.49 (6% lower)

EU: € 37.49 (30% higher)

Assassin’s Creed™: Director’s Cut Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/app/15100/

US: $ 4.99

UK: £ 2.49 (21% lower)

EU: € 4.99 (30% higher)

Assassin’s Creed 2 Deluxe Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/app/33230/

US: $ 4.99

UK: £ 3.74 (17% higher)

EU: € 7.49 (96% higher!!)

Assassin’s Creed® Brotherhood

http://store.steampowered.com/app/48190/

US: $ 13.59

UK: £ 10.19 (17% higher)

EU: € 16.99 (63% higher)

Two Worlds Epic Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/app/1930/

US: $ 6.79

UK: £ 4.75 (9% higher)

EU: € 6.79 (30% higher)

Two Worlds II

http://store.steampowered.com/app/7520/

US: $ 13.59

UK: £ 8.49 (2% lower)

EU: € 13.59 (30% higher)

Two Worlds II Castle Defense

http://store.steampowered.com/app/7530/

US: $ 4.07

UK: £ 2.71 (4% higher)

EU: € 3.39 (8% higher)

Two Worlds II – Pirates of the Flying Fortress

http://store.steampowered.com/app/200440/

US: $ 10.19

UK: £ 8.49 (30% higher)

EU: € 10.19 (30% higher)

Serious Sam 3: BFE

http://store.steampowered.com/app/41070/

US: $ 19.99

UK: £ 14.99 (17% higher)

EU: € 19.99 (30% higher)

Solar 2

http://store.steampowered.com/app/97000/

US: $2.49

UK: £1.74 (9% higher)

EU: €2.24 (17% higher)

Call of Duty®: Black Ops

http://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/

US: $29.99

UK: £19.99 (4% higher)

EU: €29.99 (30% higher)

Terraria

http://store.steampowered.com/app/105600/

US: $2.49

UK: £1.49 (6% lower)

EU: €2.49 (30% higher)

Cities in Motion

http://store.steampowered.com/app/73010/

US: $4.99

UK: £3.74 (17% higher)

EU: €4.99 (30% higher)

Sequence

http://store.steampowered.com/app/200910/

US: $1.24

UK: £0.99 (25% higher)

EU: €0.99 (4% higher)

Stronghold 3

http://store.steampowered.com/app/47400/

US: $33.49

UK: £20.09 (6% lower)

EU: €33.49 (30% higher)

F.E.A.R. Collection

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/12357/

US: $24.99

UK: £19.99 (25% higher)

EU: €24.99 (30% higher)

Gothic Complete Pack

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/12075/

US: $12.49

UK: £9.99 (25% higher)

EU: €12.49 (30% higher)

Disciples III – Resurrection

http://store.steampowered.com/app/200670/

US: $7.49

UK: £7.49 (56% higher)

EU: €7.49 (30% higher)

Disciples III – Renaissance Steam Special Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/app/33670/

US: $4.99

UK: £3.74 (17% higher)

EU: €4.99 (30% higher)

Dawn of War® – Platinum Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/447/

US: $10.19

UK: £3.39 (47% lower)

EU: €3.39 (56% lower)

Warhammer® 40,000: Dawn of War® – Soulstorm

http://store.steampowered.com/app/9450/

US: $6.79

UK: £3.39 (21% lower)

EU: €2.37 (54% lower)

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Complete Pack

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/7432/

US: $20.39

UK: £16.99 (30% higher)

EU: €13.58 (12% lower)

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands™

http://store.steampowered.com/app/33320/

US: $4.99

UK: £3.74 (17% higher)

EU: €4.99 (30% higher)

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands™ Digital Deluxe Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/app/901478/

US: $7.49

UK: NOT AVAILABLE (100% fail)

EU: €7.49 (30% higher)

Prince of Persia®

http://store.steampowered.com/app/19980/

US: $4.99

UK: £3.74 (17% higher)

EU: €3.74 (2% lower)

Prince of Persia®: The Sands of Time

http://store.steampowered.com/app/13600/

US: $2.49

UK: £2.24 (40% higher)

EU: €2.49 (30% higher)

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within™

http://store.steampowered.com/app/13500/

US: $2.49

UK: £2.24 (40% higher)

EU: €2.49 (30% higher)

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones™

http://store.steampowered.com/app/13530/

US: $2.49

UK: £2.24 (40% higher)

EU: €2.49 (30% higher)

Star Wars Republic Commando™

http://store.steampowered.com/app/6000/

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

http://store.steampowered.com/app/32370/

each

US: $2.49

UK: £1.74 (9% higher)

EU: €2.24 (17% higher)

Star Wars Battlefront® II

http://store.steampowered.com/app/6060/

US: $2.49

UK: £1.61 (1% higher)

EU: €2.24 (17% higher)

Star Wars® Empire at War™: Gold Pack

http://store.steampowered.com/app/32470/

Star Wars Jedi Knight Collection

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/

each

US: $4.99

UK: £3.74 (17% higher)

EU: €4.74 (24% higher)

ps.: Sodding packs! I hope, nobody wants the comparison for every fucking Gothic/Jedi Knight/Dawn of War II Title separately. If so, just look it up on SteamPrices.com!

Interesting info was posted on reddit today, according to one of the users he got banned by Mike Blaszczak (Valve employee) on the official Steam Forums for a suggestion he made towards his behavior on the forums, here’s the full story:

I’ll try to keep this as short as possible. Someone posted a thread in the Steam forums asking for help with an issue related to a game they had bought, asking for a response from Valve.

As it happens, and as everyone knows, Valve only responds to these problems in the form of support tickets.

Nevertheless, Valve employee MikeBlaszczak responded with absolutely no information, but moved the thread to the General Steam Forum.. without even mentioning that the proper way to handle the problem is a support ticket.

When the thread got moved, I mentioned that the only way it would get taken care of was through a support ticket. And, I did make a remark about how the Valve employee should have mentioned as much.

What I didn’t expect was that I would get my post deleted and an instant -2 point infraction from Mr. Ballsack for stating such a thing.

I admit, I was a bit annoyed after that, and I made another reply pretty much restating what I had said before.. that the only way they will find help is if they submit a ticket. And I did restate my surprise that the official valve employee response (which is quite a rare thing on those forums) failed to mention the actual helpful solution.

Bam.

Banned.

Am I right or wrong in wanting to stand up for this? I think this is the very definition of unfair treatment no matter how you look at it, but at this point it seems like I have no choice but to let it go.

What would you do?

Well if the story is real, that’s some bullshit behavior right there. Anyway, stay tuned for more giveaways today on our Steam group!

Rock of Ages

http://store.steampowered.com/app/22230/

US: $2.49

UK: £1.47 (9% higher)

EU: €1.99 (4% higher)

Bastion

http://store.steampowered.com/app/107100/

US: $5.09

UK: £3.89 (20% higher)

EU: €4.75 (21% higher)

Bulletstorm™

http://store.steampowered.com/app/99810/

US: $4.99

UK: £7.49 (135% higher!!)

EU: €12.49 (226% higher!!!)

Test Drive Unlimited 2

http://store.steampowered.com/app/9930/

US: $6.79

UK: £5.09 (17% higher)

EU: €6.79 (30% higher)

Red Faction Guerrilla

http://store.steampowered.com/app/20500/

US: $4.99

UK: £3.74 (17% higher)

EU: €2.49 (34% lower)

Red Faction®: Armageddon™

http://store.steampowered.com/app/55110/

US: $7.49

UK: £3.74 (21% lower)

EU: €7.49 (30% higher)

Worms Complete Pack

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/12391/

US: $19.99

UK: £14.99

EU: €17.49

Anomaly: Warzone Earth

http://store.steampowered.com/app/91200/

US: $2.49

UK: £2.24 (41% higher)

EU: €2.49 (30% higher)

Far Cry®

http://store.steampowered.com/app/13520/

US: $2.49

UK: £1.24 (22% lower)

EU: €2.49 (30% higher)

Far Cry® 2: Fortune’s Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/app/19900/

US: $4.99

UK: £2.49 (21% lower)

EU: €4.99 (30% higher)

Beat Hazard Complete

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/8500/

US: $3.24

UK: £2.11

EU: €2.49

A Game of Thrones – Genesis

http://store.steampowered.com/app/58550/

US: $19.99

UK: £14.99 (17% higher)

EU: €19.99 (30% higher)

Sonic Generations

http://store.steampowered.com/app/71340/

US: $10.19

UK: £6.79 (4% higher)

EU: €10.19 (30% higher)

King’s Bounty: Platinum Edition

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/6121/

US: $ 8.74

UK: £ 7.49 (34% higher)

EU: € 7.49 (11% higher)

This will allow developers and publishers on Steam to offer discounts on specific chunks of their catalogue to specific customers. It’s easy to imagine coupons being offered as prizes, operating as rewards for loyal customers or high ranking community members. THQ, for example, could offer a bonus 20% off coupon to customers who have bought three games in their catalogue. The FAQ says that it’ll be possible to redeem coupons on already discounted games “unless specified otherwise,” which could lead to some spectacular savings when used in combination with one of Steam’s mega-sales.

Valve haven’t officially announced the coupon system yet. The FAQ is the only indication that they’ve been added, but the timing is good. It arrives ahead of the upcoming Steam Holiday Sale.

Source: PC Gamer

In a recent interview with TCS, Gabe Newell explained why Valve is so successful. Recently we posted how Ubisoft were abandoning the PC market due to piracy, and imposing heavy DRM on their customers, but according to Newell that’s not really the right way to go about it.

He said that there is a general misconception about piracy, and it’s not really the high cost that forces people to pirate. It’s about the delivery service and how convenient it is to people with purchasing power:

“In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,” he said.

“For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”

Ubisoft said that, “95% of people will pirate our game.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say without releasing any sort of data and they have also cancelled Ghost Recon: Future Soldier for the PC.

Newell explained a lot more as to how they were providing better services and creating a sense of brand loyalty. He mentioned that piracy is basically a “Non-issue” for Valve.

“Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company.”

“Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe,” he revealed.

If only Ubisoft and others could learn a thing or two from this man, the gaming industry would be in a much better position.

Source: Gamingbolt

Edit: It turns out it’s probably fake but we’ll see:

Here’s the official statement in plain text:

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe.

Also I just cancelled my credit card associated with my Steam account and changed my password, Sony gave away free games after their hackings. Is Valve going to do this?

Valve’s official statement (just popped up on Steam):

During production on Half-Life 2, he spent several months focusing on the Steam project.

In 2007, Newell openly expressed his displeasure over developing his software for gaming consoles, particularly the PlayStation 3. In regard to the system, Newell was once quoted as claiming that developing processes for the console in general was "a waste of everybody’s time" and "a disaster on many levels … I’d say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a do over. Just say, ‘This was a horrible disaster and we’re sorry and we’re going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it’." Nevertheless, at E3 in 2010, Newell appeared on stage at Sony’s keynote; while acknowledging his past outspoken comments on console development, he discussed the open nature of Sony’s PlayStation 3 platform, and announced Portal 2 for the console, remarking that with Steamworks support it would be the best version for any console. Newell has also criticized the Xbox Live service, referring to it as "a train wreck".

In December 2010, Forbes named Newell as "A Name You Should Know" mainly for his work on Steam having partnerships with multiple major developers.

His favorite games are Super Mario 64, Doom, and Star Trek played on a Burroughs mainframe computer. Doom convinced him that video games were the future of entertainment, and Super Mario 64 convinced him video games were art.

Also today is Gabe’s 49 birthday and he decided to send out DOTA 2 keys. Cake is a lie…

Source: Wikipedia

“The sale is a highly promoted event that has ancillary media like comic books and movies associated with it. We do a 75 percent price reduction, our Counter-Strike experience tells us that our gross revenue would remain constant. Instead what we saw was our gross revenue increased by a factor of 40. Not 40 percent, but a factor of 40. Which is completely not predicted by our previous experience with silent price variation.“

This experiment was successfully repeated with a third party game, and the result is the non-stop flow of heavy discounts you’ll now see on Steam. It’s no coincidence that the already massively discounted GTA games, being priced at 75% for all of them ever is the number one best selling title on Steam.

Difference between saying something is “free” or “free to play”

Now a little more about discovery of the difference between saying something is “free” and saying it’s “free to play”. Newell’s explanation is not entirely clear, but it seems that the latter implies some greater level of content and long-term support for players. He says:

“The most recent thing that also is really puzzling is that we made products available for free on numerous occasions, without significantly impacting the audience size. We recently said, we’re now going to do something different, we’re not only going to signal that it’s free but we’re going to say, ‘it’s free to play,’ which is not really a pricing signal, even though that’s what you would ordinarily think it is. And our user base for our first product that we made free to play, Team Fortress 2, increased by a factor of five. That doesn’t make sense if you’re trying to think of it purely as a pricing phenomenon.

Why is free and free to play so different? Well then you have to start thinking about how value creation actually occurs, and what it is that people are valuing, and what the statement that something is free to play implies about the future value of the experience that they’re going to have.”

And being free to play, rather than simply free, seems to bring with it profit. Newell reports that since TF2 has become free to play, they’re seeing a conversion rate of players of 20 to 30 percent, going from getting the product free, to spending money on hats, etc. Why? No one yet knows. Gabe continues:

“We don’t understand what’s going on. All we know is we’re going to keep running these experiments to try and understand better what it is that our customers are telling us. And there are clearly things that we don’t understand because a simple analysis of these statistics implies very contradictory yet reproducible results. So clearly there are things that we don’t understand, and we’re trying to develop theories for them.”

Make sure to read the rest of Geek Wire’s transcription, which also includes thoughts on piracy, and Valve’s impressive success in Russia.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun

Valve has previously stated that they’re looking to finish the game before they commit to any particular pricing model, but this newly revealed info seems to indicate that they’re at least prototyping a microtransaction-driven system internally.

Other snippets of code have revealed a list of game modes and mentoring features. Included among the game modes are Single Draft, All Random, Random Draft, Captains Draft, Captains Mode, Death Mode, and Easy Mode. The mentoring system, which Valve has touted heavily as one of the most important community features, will allow players to gain karma and levels for writing hero guides or taking players under their wing.

The game’s spell icons have also surfaced, courtesy of Cyborg Matt. A lot of these are probably still placeholders. As if that weren’t enough, someone’s been uploading all of the game’s sound files to YouTube, organized by hero. To finish off this massive leak, forum users at PlayDota.com have gotten their hands on an exhaustive list of hero backstories.

Dota 2 is currently slated for release on the Windows and Mac PCs sometime in 2012, with a public beta expected to start within a matter of weeks.

The guy who leaked the beta is TsunamiNori and he’s probably fucked at the moment. Although he’s probably not from the US so he might not get sued. Here’s his Steam profile.

Source: gameranx and reddit

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Source

APB Steam refund update

25/09/2010 in Digital Distribution, News

If you bought APB from Steam, apparently EA are now offering a free game as a refund. Valve put up a brick wall, but EA are making up for the fact that customer who bought their game ended up with nothing to show for it.

If you contact them through this site, and tell them you’d like another game to replace APB, they will give you any game currently available on the EA Store. I don’t think that they will let you get preorders, but it’s worth a shot.

You can pick from the likes of Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Spore, The Saboteur, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and all sorts of other stuff.

Thanks to CHooligans for the heads up.

SavyGamer » APB Steam refund update